Here is my dilemma, I have about 100 active websites. Most are small niche websites, about 85 of them have full sites, the other 15 or so are just domains right now.
13 of them are blogs.
1 is a forum.
71 are static html/php.
So what do I do? I can’t regularly update 13 blogs and could never update 71 static html sites with any kind of regularity. Here are how I see my options and the pros and cons of each choice:
1. Sell most of the sites and refocus on a small group of 2-5.
Pros: If I sell the sites, I won’t stress about trying to update them all of the time. I know if I try to update them all, I’ll fail. Selling would get that monkey off my back. With 2-5 sites, I could definitely write 2-4 posts for each site, every day.
Cons: Some of the sites are valuable as they stand, but most of them are just great targeted domains with huge potential in the future. Most of the domains are 2 years old max, some are really young. Selling now would negate all the time and energy I’ve put in so far.
2. Never update them.
Pros: I’m already doing this. No extra work. I could start this option immediately.
Cons: Won’t make me feel any better about letting the sites stagnate. I’ll still feel inclined to update them semi-regularly (monthly) which won’t help with anything, but makes me feel slightly better.
3. Hire 20 writers to write for all of the sites.
Pros: Sites will be updated.
Cons: Huge initial cost (investment) that I don’t know if I can justify. If I only pay to update 50 of the sites regularly (1 post per day) cost will become prohibitive. 50 sites X $5 per article X 30 days/month = $7500 per month! Not to mention all of the administrative work involved with running such a huge network. Also, paying $5 per article I’ll have a lot of turnover, if I pay more per post it will definitely get too expensive. I don’t know how much income I’ll be able to generate per site, and in the beginning I definitely won’t be breaking even. Most networks with 50 sites have at least a few people on the payroll included graphic designers and coders. I don’t know if I could handle it all.
What else can I do? I need either some votes for my current ideas, or some ideas I haven’t thought of. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Wow 100 websites sounds hard! I think that if you focus on as small group as you say, you can have more chances to build a successful network.
George, thanks for the vote. What should I do with all of the other sites?
I would choose top 10 of those 100 sites and work on these 10. If you have static sites you can update them with 1-2 articles per week.
So let’s say 2 articles per week x 10 sites x 4 weeks = 80 articles per month x $5 per article is $400 per month.
If those sites are really good you should be making $400 per day from Adsense for example.
So you are investing only 3% of your income, not to mention affiliate programs.
So probably around $600 per day.
Now, if you are not happy with that, then maybe you’ve gotten too greedy… 😉
In conclusion, now that more than 10 days have passed from the date you wrote this post.What you’ve decided to do ?
you only have one head and two hands (plus two legs), sell them out before you die in front of your monitor =)
I know you would loss on your investment, but you must calculate too — how much would lost if you keep doing this
good luck with those sites!
Michael, I think I’m going to go with option 2 for now. Stop updating most of the sites and focus on 4 of them. I think I can write about 5 articles per week for all for of them while still maintaining my sanity and doing fun projects.
I have less than 100 sites (actually less than 10!), and I am already overwhelmed!
I’ve noticed a lot of talk about outsourcing lately, but you mentioned the cost of outsourcing work for that many sites would be quite prohibitive. Since you have so many and you’re fairly well known maybe you could work out some trades. Get some new bloggers who need exposure to help you out with updating your sites and providing blog content in return for some links or a review and perhaps an eventual precentage of the sites’ profits when they start to take off.
You could certainly check them out first to make sure they’d hold true to your vision. I know you’re a strong Christian so you wouldn’t want anyone writing for you that tends toward profanity or indecency of any kind. If you find a good writer who is truly interested in exposure for their own site, then there is little chance of them leaving you hanging. And if they helped maintain and build the site’s reputation then their eventual payment could certainly be justified, but you wouldn’t be taking a chance by putting thousands of dollars up front.
As a new blogger who is finding it hard to gain recognition and traffic, I’d sure be interested in some shortcuts. And I’m sure there are lots of others like me out there who’d be willing to negotiate a deal.
You could even make it an event and do some sort of apprentice-like interview process here on the blog. That would certainly be some good linkbait for this site as well as the niche sites you’d be handing over.
Anyway, I have more ideas if you want to email me.
Sara
And you can also search for people who will update site for free. This is not very hard to do. There are always fans who will update they favourite website and they don’t want money for it.
We have 3 sites to manage,… but if you was able to find so much content for so many sites,… why there is no more time to update them?
Isnt it possible to put them all into a big portal? May the content is simmilar to other sites and visiters will fill it with content?
i also have like 20 blogs and three websites. but still anticipate for more
keep on dude, you’re doing great!